Swansea – Malmo 01.08.2013

Here we are in the third qualifying round of the Europa League of another Scandinavian-Great Britain challenge,

in which will face the British team of Swansea and the Swedish Malmo. This will be the first game between the two sides, which is quite logical when we know that the team of Swansea is debuting on the European scene, and Malmo certainly has a lot more experience in these types of matches.

I have already said that this is the opportunity of Swansea to debut in European competitions, and won it by winning the English League Cup, and after a great performance and a score of 5:0, even if it was against an outclassed Bradford. But just after that game they start falling in the Premiership, and in the last 10 games recorded only one win, but were defeated six times. However, thanks to the great games of the first part of the season, Swansea end the league in the shiny ninth position, which only confirmed once again that they have become a stable Premier League side. And to justify this title in this season, the club have decided to try to make a stronger team, and signed the great attacker Bonyjem who arrived from Vitesse, the former Liverpool midfielder Shelveyem and also three Spanish players, Amato from Espanyol and midfielder Canas and Pozuelom from Betis. On the other hand, the players that left the club were mostly players who have spent more time on the bench than on the field, what confirms that the coach Laudrup has complete confidence in his first team, so from the five new signings in this game with Malmöthe only that may have his opportunity is the striker Bony.

Malmo team is currently in full race-fit, which is certainly an advantage, but it can also be a disadvantage since they are already a little tired of the constant appearances on two fronts. This was perhaps best demonstrated in the last championship match against Gefle, where as guests were defeated 2-0 and like this let the leader Helsingborg escape again at five points difference. In fact, before the game Malmo recorded two consecutive victories and seemed to have finally caught up Helsingborg, but obviously failed to withstand all the pressure, so that the with 13 remaining games is expected a extremely difficult task. Talking about the performances in the Europa League, in the first qualifying round, they had more difficult than expected when eliminate the Irish Drogheda, but they in the second round did a great job against the Scotland Hibernian, 2-0 at home and 7:0 away. However, these data do not really mean too much before the duel with the super power of Swansea, so the coach Norling will certainly make a few changes in the first team, where will not be the injured midfielder Pekalski.

No matter that Malmo has far more international experience and it is currently in full race-fit, i still believe that in this duel of the third qualifying round do not have much chance against the great team of Swansea, which this season definitely looks even stronger than last year and certainly they want leave a significant footprint in Europe.